CARD TYPES

Every battle comes down to two things – the materiel at your disposal and how you use it.

A few years ago one of the enlisted men joked that we had so little funding for ammunition that pretty soon we’d have to start throwing playing cards at the enemy. That joke kind of caught on and we’ve gotten into the habit of calling our materiel ‘cards’.

Naturally we started calling the forces we bring into battle our ‘Battledeck’. Gotta play along with the boys on the ground, right? Regardless, if you’re going to use your cards effectively in battle you better know what each one does and what the differences are.

MECHS

Mech Card Detailed Information (right-click)

Mech Card Default View

Mechs are the core of your army. Know your Mechs. Love your Mechs. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and knowing how to deploy them, where, and in what order, is going to be the difference between winning and losing.

So what’s a Mech? Basically, it’s a powerful autonomous combat unit, humanoid in shape and tougher than hell in combat. They can operate in zero-g and be customized a number of ways, so there’s a bunch of different varieties that have been put into production. These things would never have been possible if we hadn’t discovered the Rare Solar Elements (RSE’s), and as a result they represent the cutting edge of mankind’s technological advances. While they can fight on their own based on your commands, you can also team them up with a pilot to make them even more deadly. More on that later.

How does a Mech work? Let’s take a look at a card and talk about the basics…

The Mech we’re looking at is a Castellan, one of the staple offensive Mechs of the Gaia Unity forces. Notice those four values – they are the core to what that Mech can do.

Energy Cost

Energy cost only matters when you launch a Mech, but it’s pretty important. This tells you how much Spaceship energy will be required to deploy the Mech on the battlefield. For some Mechs this can be a pretty significant amount so you’ll want to keep a variety of Mechs with different Energy Costs in your Battledeck.

TIP: From time to time we’ll capture enemy Cards, and sometimes they’re pretty good pieces of equipment. Just bear in mind that they’re not fully compatible with our Spaceships so it’ll cost you an extra unit of Spaceship Energy every time you put one of these cards into play

Attack

The base strength that the Mech uses to attack and counterattack.

Fuel

How much fuel your Mech can keep on board at any one time. Almost everything your Mech does costs fuel, so you always want to keep an eye on this number.

TIP: From time to time we’ll capture enemy Cards, and sometimes they’re pretty good pieces of equipment. Just bear in mind that they’re not fully compatible with our Spaceships so it’ll cost you an extra unit of Spaceship Energy every time you put one of these cards into play.

Defence

How much damage your Mech can take before it gets destroyed.

Attack, Defence, Fuel, and Energy Cost are the basic stats of every Mech, but some Mechs represent the cutting edge of development and have their own special abilities that will be noted on their card. Take a look at the Sun Storm for instance:

This is an Alliance Mech with the special ability of Deathrattle, as you can see from its card. Any Mech with a special ability will have it noted on the card, so make sure you know if there’s anything extra special to consider before you deploy – or attack – a Mech.

Some of the Mech special abilities you’ll encounter are:

AGILE: Can attack immediately upon launch

EXPLOSIVE: When the Mech is destroyed it deals 30 damage to the enemy Spaceship.

FAST: When attacked, this Mech will deliver damage first, then take Damage from the enemy. Assuming the enemy isn’t a smoking ruin, of course.

OVERLOAD: The Mech’s attack stats are doubled as long as its Defence is lower than its normal base value.

RAVAGE: When launched, a ravage-capable Mech deals 15 damage to an enemy Mech or Spaceship. This damage can’t be counterattacked.

PILOTS

Pilot Card Detailed Information (right click)

Pilot Card Default View

While Mechs are fully capable of fighting with nobody in the cockpit, they are even more deadly with a human at the controls. Unfortunately, there’s not enough pilots to have one in every Mech, but if there were enough humans to go around we probably wouldn’t be having this war.

When you want to get a pilot into the action you’ll need to use Spaceship Energy just like you would when launching a Mech. Unlike a Mech though, you don’t launch a pilot onto a battlefield position. Rather, you ‘attach’ them directly to a Mech that has already been launched, costing that Mech one fuel point in the process. We use the term ‘attaching’ because the pilot has to plug their neural core directly into the Mech’s control mesh. That isn’t an easy process, so unless your enemy forces a detach, that pilot is attached to the Mech for the rest of the battle. If the Mech gets destroyed, so does the pilot.

An attached pilot essentially becomes one with their Mech, adding a bonus on top of the Mech’s base stats. The pilot’s Attack and Defence values are additive, and any special abilities the pilot has will become available to their Mech.

Some of the special abilities a pilot may be able to impart upon their Mech are:

DETACH: Force an enemy Mech to eject its pilot (goes back to enemy pilot hand). If the Mech’s Defence drops below zero after the pilot is ejected then the Mech will be destroyed.

EVASION: Avoid any Mech damage from the first attack after the pilot is attached. Note that this is only damage to the Mech. They can still lose any bonus Defence they get from their formation position.

IMMUNE: Invincible to any kind of damage at all for one whole turn.

JAMMED: Stun an enemy Mech for one turn upon attaching, meaning the enemy Mech can’t attack for one turn.

JETTISON: Enemy player has to drop one card from their hand (card is destroyed).

REPLICATE: Copy a deployed enemy Mech’s stats and abilities.

EVENTS

Event Card Detailed Information (right-click)

Event Card Default View

Events are the wild card in your arsenal. These are one-offs that can range from little boosts that help your forces along the way, or powerful game changers that shift the tide of battle altogether. Events require Spaceship energy, like all other card to be used, the required energy is outlined on the top left corner and the detailed description of the impact can be seen on the card with more details available when you right-click on the card.

It would take too long to describe all the different ways an Event Card can affect the battle, so I’ll just leave you with this advice: The battle isn’t over until there’s only one Spaceship standing!

BATTLE SYSTEM

NEWS

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